Tag Archives: the kingdom of God

“Son, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus received what was bad, but now he is comforted here, and you are in torment.”

Mattie Dixon lived all of her life in a small town. She didn’t have a will; she hadn’t taken care of anything before she died at the age of eighty-nine.

Mattie was a widow. She couldn’t have children; but she had some distant great grand-nieces, nephews, and cousins – maybe. They didn’t attend her funeral; they didn’t really know her. They didn’t know what to do; what would happen to the house, the property, the mementos and the personal effects and all!

Finally, the taxes and other bills had to be paid. So the auc­tioneer came, and strangers crawled around all the personal ef­fects of Mattie Dixon. There was her wedding ring, one of those heavy ones. When Mattie was alive, if you said to her, “Mattie, I love that ring, I’ll give you a thousand dollars for it,” she would turn that ring on her finger and say, “Fifty-six years of faithful marriage, and you want to buy this? I wouldn’t sell you this for ten million dollars!”Continue reading →